Stars-Ducks thoughts

This was a tough loss. They did a great job to overcome the 2-0 deficit and take the lead and they gave two goals in a 91 second span of the third period and lost the game. Fourth loss in a row, which knocked them out of a playoff spot as far as the regular old points standings. Not sure where they’ll stand as far as points percentage. Not sure it matters right now. This little slump isn’t what they needed. It hasn’t doomed them, but it hasn’t really helped the cause either here. After tomorrow’s game against the Pens, who seemed to have turned things around a bit since the coaching change, it’s a tough road ahead for the Stars.

As for the game, I thought a lot of it turned on special teams play. The Ducks got the early lead on the power play, the Stars got back into the game with that power play to make it 2-1 and right after the Stars missed on a power play that could have extended the lead to 4-2, the Ducks tied it at 3-3 on that Corey Perry spin-o-rama goal. Just 91 seconds later James Neal coughs up the puck, Teemu Selanne scores and the Ducks have the lead for good.

The Stars were flat early, strong in the middle of the game and then a couple mistakes killed them at the end. It’s tough to win playing like that. 

I thought Mike Ribeiro was great. Best player on the ice. He could have used some help. He can’t be the offense all by himself. There needs to be some secondary scoring and that’s dried up right now.

On the Steve Ott stuff at the end, there had to be more to it than that little cross check he put on Scott Niedermayer there at the end of the game. This is probably something that had been building up over the course of the game, or maybe even longer. Anyway, J-S Giguere apparently had enough and away things went.

Ott got a match penalty for alleged eye gouge when he and Moen were down on the ice. He’s out for Sunday’s pending a review, which will come Monday. This just adds to the Stars woes, because it will be another key guy out of the lineup on Sundaya.

As for Moen, I am not sure why he didn’t get something beyond just the fighting major. He came all the way from the middle of the circle to the side of the net to start throwing punches at Ott.

Anyway, here are some postgame quotes provided by Stars PR, Ott’s postgame audio and the video of the end of the game. 

Trevor Daley: “It’s a tough one. It’s definitely not from a lack of effort. Everyone’s trying out there; we just can’t find a way to win. We’re doing all the right things, we just can’t find ways to win.”

On Turco’s 32 straight game played: “That’s what he loves to do, he loves to play. It’s a little bit frustrating I’m sure, to play that well and not get wins.”

Mike Ribeiro: “It’s more disappointment than frustration right now. You manage to come back, tie game then lose in the third period. It’s mental mistakes at the wrong times and teams are scoring when we make those mistakes. We need to be stronger with the puck and know it’s a tie game, we need to push to get points. There are a lot of games left and we’re right in the battle. We need everyone to push together at the same time and get points. You can’t change was just happened the last few games, but you can control tomorrow. We need guys to step up and guys as a group to shut down.”

Steve Ott: “It’s getting extremely disappointing around here. Our slogan around here today was to find a way to win and we didn’t do that today. We’re going to need all 20 guys. For some reason it seems like we haven’t had everybody buy in, and we’ve got to have that on a nightly basis. It’s tough when you get jumped and you have a busted hand but you’re trying to defend yourself. They’re a very rough team and we like to match it.”

Matt Niskanen: “We did some better things with the man-advantage today. We were trying to get pucks to the net. We have been in this situation the last few games, one or two plays a game are killing us. That one hurts, those would’ve been a big two points. Every guy has to bring a little bit more tomorrow, we need to have a chip on our shoulder.”

James Neal: “It’s tough but we can’t have mistakes like mine because they are ending up in our net. We better bounce back quickly for tomorrow.”

Dave Tippett: “You have to limit mistakes and make your special teams count, to protect leads. It’s a learning process for us right now. It was a poor decision on Neal’s part, you can’t toe drag five feet from the blue line. That’s a mistake by a young player. We are in a hard battle for the playoffs and I don’t care who is playing, we have to get the job done. We are competing hard but we have some weak links right now. Marty didn’t have his best night and we are making mistakes that are costing us games.”

Ott postgame audio

YouTube Video Ott-Moen

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